While speaking from the Oval Office on Friday, President Donald Trump said that he never promised Obamacare would be repealed immediately. This came following House Republicans pulling their Obamacare replacement, the American Health Care Act, minutes before its planned vote.

“I never said repeal and replace it in 64 days,” Trump said from the Oval Office.

In fact, Trump on numerous occasions during the campaign promised that the Affordable Care Act would be repealed and replaced immediately after he entered office. In November 2016, for instance, Trump said during a health care event that as soon as he became president, he would convene a special sessions of Congress to repeal Obamacare.

“We will be able to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare,” Trump said. “We have to do it. I will ask Congress to convene a special session so we can repeal and replace, and it will be such an honor for me, and for you, and for everybody in this country, because Obamacare has to be replaced, and we will do it, and we will do it very, very quickly. It is a catastrophe.”

Trump also suggested in nearly every rally during the final months of his campaign that he would immediately begin dismantling Obamacare on his very first day in office.

“That begins with immediately repealing and replacing the disaster known as Obamacare,” Trump said. “My first day in office, I’m going to ask Congress to put a bill on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability. You’re going to have such great health care, at a tiny fraction of the cost, and it’s going to be so easy.”

Now, President Trump is beginning to say that it will be better to let Obamacare continue to operate until Democrats come to the Republicans begging for help getting a repeal passed. He also says that the administration will be completely moving on to tax reform, and so they likely will not be getting back to health care reform for some time.

“Perhaps the best thing that could happen is exactly what happened today,” Trump said.

@7:19pm – Trump won the Electoral Vote with coat tails – House, Senate, Supreme Court. The Republican Party is supposed to thank him for their majority by supporting his bills during the first 100 days!

(And by the way, citing the “people” or “popular vote” is a fallacy as it wasn’t a race for “popular” vote acquisition, but “electoral” vote. They both agreed which race to run. So yes, he has a clear mandate.)

@Anonymous at 7:41 pm, in government, mandate refers to the right to govern via the fair winning of a democratic election. Comey already testified the Russians interfered in the election against Hillary . . . and Donnie Boy is trying to stifle the investigation about the Russian’s interference . . . in fact, he not only praises Putin, he begged the Russian government to hack her emails . . . the plot thickens . . . and if he has a “mandate” is yet to be known!

@12AM – “he begged the Russian government to hack her emails…” – THIS NEVER HAPPENED.

The fact is that Hillary deleted 30,000 emails from her personal server. Trump asked “Russia” to produce those 30,000 non-existent emails. That isn’t requesting a “hack” because the emails had already been deleted, and the server had been wiped clean and no longer in operation. It was a facetious comment by Trump, which Schiff had mischaracterized as a request.

The strength of the “Russia – Trump Campaign” conspiracy is with its allegations concerning Paul Manafort, JD Gordon, and Carter Page as detailed by Rep. Adam Schiff’s recent retelling of the Christopher Steele docier. But since the docier is not a credible source, with many factual errors, this phase of the ongoing investigation is simply to find out what parts of the docier are true, and what parts are false.

Anonymous @12AM – “he begged the Russian government to hack her emails…” – THIS NEVER HAPPENED.

YES, IT DID HAPPEN . . . IN DORAL, FL (I WAS THERE!!! AS A LIFELONG INDEPENDENT I BELIEVE IT’S IMPORTANT TO LISTEN ALL PERSPECTIVES. HE DID IT AT RALLIES AT OTHER LOCATIONS AS WELL) –

THIS IS FROM THE JULY 27, 2016 BOSTON GLOBE AND NY TIMES’ editions::

“DORAL, Fla. — Donald Trump said Wednesday that he hoped Russian intelligence services had successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s e-mail and encouraged them to publish whatever they may have stolen, essentially urging a foreign adversary to conduct cyberespionage against a former secretary of state.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing,” Trump said during a news conference here before he flew to Pennsylvania for a campaign event. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

“Facetious comment,’ huh? Didn’t sound that way to most Americans–left or right. Plus, he called for them to hack the DNC too. Furthermore, how do you know Clinton’s emails weren’t hacked by the Russians before she deleted them . . . plus, the FBI was able to resurrect many of deleted Clinton emails; therefore, I am sure the Russians have equal if not superior capability to do the same . . . so the fact that the emails were already deleted, and the server was no longer in operation, makes his comment “facetious” is open to debate.

@5:09 It’s not open for debate, but common sense. In the video above, Trump didn’t ask them to hack anything – he requested for them to “find” something that didn’t exist – more than a year AFTER the emails had been bleached clean from the server and the disconnected server was in possession of the FBI. That’s not “requesting a hack”. Requesting a hack is a felony. So it’s “not up for debate” as you so stated.

The Russians did not demonstrate any ounce of capability to hack anything. The DNC and Podesta leaks were the result of phishing emails that requested the passwords to individual accounts and the users provided them. Their servers were never hacked, just as Hillary’s server was never hacked. Had it been hacked, Hillary would have gone to prison.

As far as the “Russians demonstrating,” what do you think, they posted a YouTube video of their hacking? Of course, they, along with every super power have the ability, and do hack foreign governments.

There is only 1 superpower, the USA. If Russia had the ability, as you say, to hack foreign governments, they did not demonstrate that capability with their phishing emails that led to the DNC and Podesta leaks. So the basis for the claim that Russia has “equal if not superior capability” to do the same as the FBI (resurrecting deleted emails from Clinton’s server) is groundless. Besides, we already know how the FBI may have achieved it – Snowden gave us the method – all digital information that passes through the internet is stored by the USA in a digital database and can be recovered with BULLRUN, XKEYSCORE, or other programs quickly and easily.

@12:06am – I don’t know what it means at this point. It could be a wake-up call, or maybe he’s out of his league. I just have to wait and see. This is because negotiating against ideologies is different than negotiating business deals. Maybe he’ll find a way to do it, or maybe he won’t.

But I think the discord could be problematic for him, pragmatically speaking, becase the savings from Trumpcare was going to be used to pay for his tax cuts. Now he has to negotiate with these same people to get these cuts without this cushion. So this will be harder for him to accomplish. One can hope that the fiscally responsible Freedom Caucus planned it this way, preferring to pass the budget before passing Trumpcare, in order to maximize the tax savings to the public.

“negotiating against ideologies is different than negotiating business deals” . . . you are exactly correct! After having spent significant time in both corporate America and government, the two are VERY different species. Corporate people, particularly those of Trump’s age, are exceedingly autocratic . . . government, on the other hand, for good or bad, is an aircraft carrier that cannot turn on a dime and requires everyone at the wheel to allow it to turn at all.

While not in total agreement, Senator Lindsay Graham’s remarks at his Town Hall meeting this morning were highly encouraging. Respectfully disagree with the “responsible Freedom Caucus,” as its fiscal sense of responsibility is too intrusive into the personal lives of others, and too remiss on corporate welfare reform. Plus, be it left or right, find that such rigid ideologies become the tyranny of the minority.

@4:36 – I was just reviewing the history of universal health care, and it’s possible that the Freedom Caucus may have been supporting a different type of system that was introduced by Republicans back in 1993 (Phil Gramm). The main difference between this system and Obamacare, is that Obamacare provides comprehensive coverage whereas Gramm’s system provides catastrophic coverage. I think that Gramm’s idea was based on a risk assessment that catastrophic needs occur with a low frequency in the population, that the government can afford to cover everyone.

My point is that if the Freedom Caucus supported this catastrophic type of coverage, and Paul Ryan created a bill that supported a comprehensive system of coverage, then there would be no way to reconcile their differences without creating an entirely new bill.

Aaaa, I think Donnie needs to check his own past websites, including those since he’s been in office . . . gee, with a Republican majority, and Donnie still can’t get his bill passed . . . but true-to-form, Donnie goes to his fall back position of blaming someone else for his failure . . . this time, it’s the Democrats . . . surprise, surprise!! LMAO!!

OMG, you are sssooo brilliant. I see what you did there. You emphasized Obama’s race by putting “Black” in front of his name! You clever devil, you! See it’s that kind of brilliancy from Trump supporters and the GOP that yielded today’s self inflicted disaster. But, not you. You’re one of the smart ones! Yay, you!!!!

Tell the truth, you got plastered after Ryan/Trump got their @$$es handed to them and posted this comment, didn’t you? Are you crying? Do your tears taste like salty goodness? Mmmm, tears! MMmm GOP tears!!! FOH, simpleton!!!

“Blackbama” . . . that’s all ya’ got??? Sorry, dude,,doesn’t change the fact that today was an epic fail for Don-the-Conmunist!!! In the meantime, Donnie can eat himself into oblivion with Taco Bell, KFC, and McDonalds. LMAO!!!